Paquetes as Improvised Media: Transnationalism and Cultural Consumption in Havana-Miami Context

Abstract

Mediatic gambiarras are alternative and improvised forms of media consumption. They emerge in adverse or restrictive contexts. Signal the need for connection on the part of those who use them. In the island of Cuba, paquetes, sets of files containing pop culture content, music, series, US blockbusters, among others, not shown in Cuban media systems, are the most established cultural form of mediatic gambiarra on the socialist island. The article presents the result of a research project carried out between the years 2015 and 2017, based on an ethnographic-inspired methodology, with field interviews and participant observation in the city of Havana, with the purpose of debating different uses of the paquetes by consumers and fans of pop culture in the Cuban context. Contradictions about the practices of paqueteros — subjects who sell paquetes in online and offline network creations — are mapped from the emergence of traces of capitalism in Cuba that pass through the always conflicting relationship between residents in Havana and migrants in Miami in symbolic disputes on the island. The questions raised in the field signal for different matrixes around transnationalism in Latin America, geopolitical issues and point to understandings about the singularities and challenges of contemporary Cuba.